Of Beginnings and Endings

by Robert Adams

  When he and one of the others had assisted the knight to sit up on the cloth, Rukh rose to his feet and filled his basin from a steaming kettle set on one of the chamber's glowing braziers, but when he examined the scalp beneath the damp hair, he hissed between his teeth, turned, and spat a rapid-fire stream of instructions in the Kalmyk tongue to one of the others, who then left at a run.

  Sinking once more onto his heels to face his patient, he asked diffidently, "Please, my lord von Brienne, how and when were the wounds upon your pate done you? With what were they done, does my lord know?"

  Charles nodded and shrugged. "The older were done when a wall or a part of one fell on me, killed several of my retainers, and sundered my helm. That is how I was captured. A party of pagans, desirous of the arms and armor they could spy beneath the stones, uncovered me, and when they found that I lived, enslaved me. The more recent injuries were wrought when one of my captors belabored me with the butt of his riding whip."

  By then, the Kalmyk sent out had fetched back a small flagon and a brass cup. These he handed to Rukh, who sniffed at the neck of the flagon, then poured a goodly measure of the liquor into the cup and set it on the floor. From out the casket, he took a small, horn container. He unstoppered it, added its brown-black contents to the liquor in the cup, then stirred the resultant mixture vigorously with one long forefinger.

  Raising the cup and proffering it to Charles, he said gravely, "Please to drink this draught, my lord von Brienne. Men of the west find its savor abominable, so swallow it quickly, but be certain that you swallow it all, even the very dregs of it."

  "What is it, this stuff you want me to drink?" demanded the knight warily.

  "The flagon contains a fine brandy, this one, from the Sandlandt, I believe, from out the Reichsherzog's own cellars. The potion which I have added was discovered by a former student of mine, one Nugai; it is composed of certain rare herbs, and when combined with liquor, it will render you into a deep sleep for some hours."

  "Why must I be put to sleep merely to get a haircut and to trim my beard?" probed Charles suspiciously, still fearing and deeply distrusting any Kalmyk and his motives.

  Patiently, the squatting man answered, "In order to treat the wounds now dangerously festered in your pate, it will be necessary to shave your head, entire. Then, after those wounds have been all opened afresh and cleaned, it may be found best to cauterize them, and for all that this one is aware of just how brave you are, he still knows that the body, unbidden, can flinch at inopportune times, is it not soundly asleep and unfeeling. My master, the Reichsherzog, values you most highly, my lord von Brienne, and would so be much wroth were you not to be treated and so die. Therefore, please to drain the cup . . . but here, please to allow this one to once again stir it."

  When Charles at last awakened, he lay in a large bedchamber and in the finest and largest feather bed he ever had occupied, as large was it even as his late father's had been. For the first time in a long, long while, he awakened to no pain at all, only the feeling of coolness under the bandages he could detect on his back and shoulders and atop his head. But he awakened to a raging thirst.

  Wordless, the Kalmyk, Rukh, arose from where he squatted nearby, helping the knight to sit up, then poured and placed in his hands a pint beaker-cup of a cool, pale wine. Immediately he had quaffed the contents of the cup, Charles felt sleep once more claiming him, dashing against his halfhearted defenses of consciousness in wave after irresistible wave. He thought to feel the wiry arms of the Kalmyk lowering his body again to the bed, then he felt nothing.

  On the next time he awoke, he not only again thirsted ragingly, but hungered as well. And Rukh, apparently anticipating just such hungers, was once more waiting, squatting on the dais beside the great bed, this time accompanied there by two ewers—one of the same pale wine, the other of a rich meat broth, fragrant of the odors of onions, garlic, herbs, and Malabar pepper with a hint of cinnamon.

  With all of the hearty broth in his belly, Charles felt much better—alert, vital, strength having seemingly returned to all his being—yet when he made to swing his legs out of the high bed and make use of the convenience, he found that said legs would not support him, and that though use the convenience he eventually did, it could be done only with the help of Rukh and another of the surprisingly strong little Kalmyks, Mankas.

  Rukh would not allow the knight to return immediately to the bed, but rather placed him in a chair with both arms and back to take his wine in sips, while Mankas went out of the chamber on an errand. The younger Kalmyk soon returned with Rukh's cour bouilli casket slung from his shoulder and a folded length of thick linen under his other arm.

  Once again, he was asked politely to swill a smaller measure of the awful-tasting concoction he recalled from his first night in the Reichsherzog's country palace. He did so and shortly knew no more for time unreckonable. But Rukh was squatting on the dais by his bedside when he again awakened, again with broth and wine and his wiry strength to aid him in reaching the necessarium. That matter accomplished, a brace of Kalmyks entered the chamber with a simple arrangement of a light armed chair and poles for carrying it. It was thus Charles was borne below-stairs to the chamber of the sunken bath and all his body save the still bandage-swathed area above his eyes laved again. Then he was carried back up the stairs and put back into the bed. Shortly, his noble host joined him.

  With the customary, polite amenities between two noblemen out of the way, Rukh and the Kalmyk who had accompanied the German both squatting soundless near the door, and a decanter and cups on the table between their chairs, Wolfgang remarked, "Sieur de Brienne, you are an exceedingly lucky young man. God must truly love you or have important plans for you if not both together. Did you know that?"

  Charles had no slightest idea just what his host was talking about or getting at, but he simply answered, "No, Your Grace.''

  "Then I must tell you of the unquestionable miracles which have resulted in your sitting here and drinking with me this night," said the Reichsherzog with a brisk nod. "Know you, sir, that more than nine and ninety men out of any hundred would never have for one minute survived the first of your head injuries, much less the long mistreatment, the additional head injuries, and the protracted forced marching from out of France and halfway through my own lands to where I found and bought you of your captor. Rukh says that you aver a wall fell on you. Tell me about it, pray. You must have been full-armed—no other way you could have lived through such."

  Charles began, saying, "Then know you, Your Grace, that the town of Brienne grew up from the extended outer bailey of the Castle of Brienne, starting centuries ago when still it was a part of the old kingdom of Burgundy, before my ancestors conquered it and its lands for France. With the recent years of peace, the town had expanded, despite the misgivings of my late sire, Sieur Rupert, Marquis de Brienne, not a few more recent structures had been raised beyond and even hard against the outer faces of the town wall. Upon the incursions of the first waves of the pagans, right many folk—of all classes and stations—fled to the supposed protection of the town, but the external construction—confirming my poor sire's very worst fears—not only prevented proper use of bows, crossbows, cannon, and smaller arms from the towers and bastions but provided the attackers quick and simple means to scale the walls themselves in numerous places. The town was packed with refugees from the countryside, and their milling mobs prevented the quick redispositioning of such few trained troops as we had, so before long the pagans had gapped a gate and the wolves were within the fold."

  "We fought them in the streets and spaces of the town until we found ourselves driven back to the walls of the old inner bailey, wherein were the town homes of our extended family and some few minor nobility of the Mark. Vastly outnumbered by the heathen horsemen, my sire had us gather as many fighters and such quantities of arms and supplies as we quickly could, then retreated into the inner bailey; however, as he knew the walls to be too weak and low to hold attackers for l
ong, no matter how well defended, he set most of those at his command to stripping the houses of anything that could be of use to a garrison under siege and borne up the hill into the walled castle itself, while the rest of us strove to hold the bailey walls, keep the barbarians back long enough that the Marquis might complete his purpose."

  "Upon being apprised that the most of our force was within the castle, we spiked our few old bombards, bore away with us the port-pieces, sling-pieces, wall calivers, and suchlike with the shot and powder for them. Just before enough of the pagans had come over the walls to really fight us, we fired every building we could reach on our line of retreat, then entered the castle ourselves, and barred the gates behind us."

  "The pagans immediately flung themselves against the castle, of course, charging right through the blazing high town and along the tops of the flanking walls. They are long on courage, though often short on any sort of caution; they kept charging the walls on their big-headed little ponies even after we had shot down so many of their predecessors that they needs must jump or clamber over the twitching bodies to get at those walls which they could not have hoped to scale anyway, without at least a few ladders, at gates they could not have breached lacking any tools save bows, swords, axes, and bare hands."

  The German nodded. "Yes, the initial waves of Kalmyks lost a very large number of warriors, not only at Brienne but elsewhere as well. I blame that on the fact that the most of that wave was composed of the young, the hotheaded, the loot-hungry, not a few of them riding their very first large-scale raid, with the more mature and levelheaded men among them being almost entirely from clans only recently arrived from far to the east and so owning precious little experience at the conditions and dangers of this kind of warfare. Out on the far steppes, you see, young sir, most walls are of wood and can be burnt down by enough fire arrows, nor are large, modern, longer-ranging cannon at all that common out on the steppes, and there are there far more bows, axes, and swords or spears and lances than there are dags and arquebuses. But I ramble on. Continue with your tale, please."

  "The castle itself was as strong and secure as ever, of course—it had fallen but once since completed in its present form; that was when my great-grandsire took it, and he had been quick to see the single weak point that had helped him and his force to conquer quickly and thoroughly corrected—but the force that had followed my sire into it was actually too small to serve as any adequate form of long-term garrison, and not even all of those were trained to arms. There was no lack of water up there, at least; all of that area is rife with icy-cold springs that flow freely in even the worst of droughts, and one such was within the castle walls. But of weapons and supplies we were in want almost at the very inception of our resistance."

  "Had we had more powder, we might well have just sat up there and driven the pagans from out the town as we soon were able to do from the inner bailey, but we did not, and therefore my sire soon forbade the loosing off of cannon at any save very large groupings of the heathen, small arms to be employed only against assaults on the walls. Meanwhile, he set men to making cartridges of various sizes from paper and waxed cloth, then filling them with exact measures of such powder as we did have that none of the precious stuff be spilled and wasted to our use during loadings."

  "My sire, all of us who understood warfare knew that unaided we could not long hold the castle, even against such primitives as those we faced, not lacking gunpowder, supplies, and more men, but we were certain that the king must even then be marching an army to the relief of us and the other invaded demesnes; we knew that many gallopers had been sent to His Highness and could not imagine him just leaving us to fight and die alone. And so we held our place, cutting rations until they could be cut no more and still keep us alive with the strength to fight, watching our supplies of powder shrink and watching continually from the tower tops for the lily banners of salvation."

  "Some few, small, uncoordinated forces did try to come to the aid of you and the other holdouts, you know," said the Reichsherzog, "but they were not either led or ordered by your dear king. No, they were raised and led, if you can call it that, by certain noble-born nincompoops—the Comte de This or the Baron de That—all of whom apparently rode under the impression that they were leading forces to something on the order of a mere Italian tourney. And by the time that any of them actually got into combat situations, the main waves of the Kalmyks were arrived, better armed and led by sagacious, blooded veteran chiefs and sub-khans. Under them, the warriors virtually exterminated the pitiful little scratch forces of the French noblemen. But as regards your esteemed king, he gathered the most of his available troops in and around Paris, and for all I know he is still squatting there, no doubt having halberdiers peek under his bed before he takes to it of nights, lest there be a file of Kalmyks lurking there. Such is not a monarch I could either respect or serve, no!"

  "But, then, it had been the considered opinion of my nephew, the Emperor, and his councilors that His Highness of France would behave in just so shameful and cowardly a manner were his eastern frontier marks attacked suddenly and forcefully by the likes of a large number of Kalmyks. It is to me regrettable that you and your peers and people had to so suffer and die, but whilst you are blaming the Kalmyks, my nephew, and me, reflect that an even larger part of the blame should lie upon the narrow, quaking shoulders of your greedy, feckless, unprincipled, and cowardly king."

  7

  "Way it looks," said Greg Sinclair to Arsen and the other whites assembled that night in one of the commodious chambers of Arsen and Lisa in the fort, "this here brave, this Snake-and-a-half, was sent up here for to see if it was really true we'd kicked some shit out the damn spies before they got around to sending any more their braves to join up with us."

  "Well, thank God," breathed Arsen feelingly. "This is the fucking beginning we've been waiting and hoping and praying for. Did the Micco ever figure out where he came from?"

  "No." Greg shook his head. "He allowed as how he'd heard of the tribe, long time back, but he didn't know exac'ly where their stomping grounds was. We was all stumped till old Swift Otter come by and he knew right off. These Sis-ip-aw-haws are from east and north of us, somewhere between the next two rivers north of this one, but closer to the coast, see. Seems like it never was too many of them, just one of these small tribes, and the damn fucking spies have been hunting them for years, like everybody else, too, around here, so it's fewer now than there might've been."

  "Not even Snake-and-a-half is a Sis-ip-aw-haw, his own self; he's one of the last of a costal tribe from down near the mouth of thishere river was wiped out by the spies, years back. It's just the Sis-ip-aw-haws took him in, adopted him into the tribe, and he married one their squaws."

  "What does the Micco think of him?" asked Lisa Peters.

  Greg replied, "Well, he told me that for a warrior so young—I'd say Snake-and-a-half is maybe thirty, thirty-five—he is very wise, resourceful, moves gracefully, looks strong, is clearly an accomplished killer of men. He later said that he wished he'd gotten the chance to take him into his tribe first."

  Arsen nodded and smacked a fist into his palm. "Well, I'll take that sharp old man's word on it, then. Simon, issue him a full kit—rifle, pistol, powder, everything—then you and Swift Otter teach him the ropes on them. When he leaves here for home, we'll give him another set for his chief or sachem or whatever, too. But I say we should keep him around here for a while, get to know him."

  "Ahhh, there's a problem about him, Arsen," said Greg. "He can't really talk to nobody don't have a helmet."

  "Now wait a fucking minute," yelped Arsen. "I thought you just now got through telling us Swift Otter knew his tribe and all?"

  "Oh, yeah," said Greg, "he knows his tribe, knows where they live and all, but he still can't talk to him, and neither can the Micco or any the others, 'cept in sign language is all. The way the Micco explained it to me, the Sis-ip-aw-haws speak a language as different from Shawnee as Shawnee is from Creek
or either one is from spic. The Micco, he says all the Injuns speaks different languages, too, even the ones live almost on top of each other; some of the ones some of them talk is close enough related to Creek that they can sometimes talk to each other pretty good, but most of them ain't, and that's how come they had to come up with sign language and why all of them has to know it and have all the signs down pat. I'm just glad as hell now I took a merit badge in Injun sign language back when I was in the Boy Scout Troop at St. James's Church and ain't never forgot the most of it—lots of them signs is the same ones or close to the same ones these Injuns here uses, see. But Arsen, teaching him how to shoot and load and prime and cast bullets and all and not blow off his own head or at least a hand in doing it by just sign language is gonna be a bitch and a fucking half, buddy."

  Arsen shrugged. "Okay, then, you teach him, you and one of the other braves, and all three of you wear helmets all the time you're doing it, that's all I can figure. But I want him won over for us, Greg. I want this Sis-ip-aw-haw Tribe for my Indian Confederation. By the way, did he mention how many braves they have?"

  "Yeah, Arsen, he told the Micco wasn't many left, way the damn spies downriver from them has been riding them so long and all, you know. He's one, and it's sixteen more where he come from. It ain't many, Arsen," Greg concluded glumly.

  "Maybe not," Arsen agreed. "But it's still a beginning, buddy. We get together enough little bunches of sixteen, seventeen braves, arm them all with Uncle Bagrat's finest flintlocks, we'll be able to flat put the Spanish and all the other fucking slaving whites in this place on the run."

  "Arsen," spoke up John the Greek quietly, "I hate to throw water on your righteous wrath, but not just the white settlers here hold Indian slaves, you know. Holding slaves is an old and quite accepted Indian custom, too. The Micco and his people, they brought up a fair number of slaves with them when they came north to us; and Swift Otter tells me that in the old days, when they were more numerous and strong enough to make war against other tribes, these Shawnees did, too. Now and then, here and there, in fact, I'm told various tribes have held white slaves, captured from settlements or coastal shipwrecks or out of fights with cross-country expeditions that the Spanish send out from time to time. So if you and Lisa mean to play Lincoln, maybe you'd better stop bum-rapping the Spanish long enough to emancipate the Micco's slaves."